Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas: Being a Jane Austen Mystery Page 8

  “His sister!” I beamed at him; Frank is very dear to me, whether sailing the high seas or turned on shore. “He has served twice under Admiral Gambier, I know—was it then that you made his acquaintance?”

  “Far earlier,” he replied. “Around the Year Five—before the Trafalgar Action. I was fortunate enough to sail with the Canopus as a midshipman. It was Captain Austen who taught me to read a sextant, and command a gun crew, and board a French vessel with my sword drawn.”

  It had been nearly ten years since Frank had commanded the Canopus; the Lieutenant must have been a lad of eighteen or twenty at the time. I wondered why such a personable young man, and enjoying an admiral’s influence, had not achieved the next step in rank of Master and Commander, or Post Captain. We were lately done with a punishing war against the French—when any number of zealous sailors had earned both fortune and advancement through their actions. Much as Buonaparte was deplored, and his exile cause for rejoicing, his existence these fifteen years has been a boon to the ambitious in the Royal Navy—provided they survived their battles. So many sailors were second sons, forced to seek their fortunes on the high seas; few could marry without the taking of rich prizes. No lieutenant, tied to an admiral on shore, could hope to share in such wealth; and I thought I understood a little of Miss Gambier’s melancholy. Her brother had confessed their parent died in debt. It was to be presumed she lacked a private fortune. If she had lost her heart to Lieutenant Gage last summer in Brighton, hers was a sad case.

  But it did not do to wander in thought at the dinner table. “How fortunate you are,” I said to my companion, “to observe the negotiations in Ghent! You will understand that with two brothers serving the Admiralty, I am anxious about this American War.”

  “Two brothers?”

  “I may also claim Captain Charles Austen, lately of the Atlantic Station. He is presently gone into the Mediterranean—a sadly flat business, now Buonaparte is cast upon his rock!”

  “—Unless he chuses to leave it,” the Lieutenant said facetiously. “Only think what glory for your brother then! But the Atlantic Station has indeed given cause for anxiety. Our ships have taken a drubbing at American hands. I doubt any at the Admiralty expected it. Commerce, not broadsides, has generally been the American object.”

  “They are not unintelligent,” I protested. “Having shewn them how to rout British infantry in the last war, we have lately been teaching them the finer arts of gunnery in this one! The Constitution’s engagements with our Guerrière and Java—on separate occasions, in different parts of the world, and under different commanders—demonstrated that. Both ships were dismasted, I believe, and burnt as hulks? And this, from a forty-four-gun frigate!”

  “I see you have closely followed the Naval dispatches,” Lieutenant Gage said with a smile.

  “News of the Constitution is everywhere, I assure you. The Americans have taken five British warships in her—and will take more, no doubt, if the war continues. Nothing of our methods has escaped their notice—neither improvements in the design of vessels, nor in maneuvers, nor communications. We cannot end hostilities soon enough, lest Britannia’s rule of the waves be entirely overthrown.”

  In the heat of my feelings, my voice had increased in volume; and I saw that it had fallen into one of those odd silences that sometimes seize even the most animated of dinner tables. Most of my companions were staring at me—James with disapproval.

  “Pray remember where you are, Jane, and do not run on in the wild way you are suffered to do at home. Lieutenant Gage can have not the slightest interest in a woman’s idea of politics.”

  “He may, however, admire her knowledge of Naval tactics,” the Lieutenant said.

  “You are all condescension, sir.” James was at his most pompous. “I fear the attention my sister has won, with her frivolous publications—she has lately taken up the amusement of novel-writing—has entirely gone to her head. She fancies herself an Authority, tho’ she has not a syllable of Latin.”

  “Neither does the crew of the Constitution,” Raphael West said quietly.

  I met his curiously penetrating gaze and coloured. There was a spark of laughter in West’s eyes. He did not suffer fools; James, therefore, must be a delight.

  “Your father is an American, I believe, Mr. West?” Mary enquired.

  “No, ma’am. He is a Philadelphian.”

  Among general laughter, she protested, “I do not understand!”

  “To be a native of Philadelphia—the birthplace of freedom, unless one is talking to a Boston man—is to know a higher order of allegiance than mere country. What we British fail to understand,” West continued, “is that America is first a collection of states, more singly dear to their inhabitants than any collective idea of a republic. My father should always admit to Philadelphia, before he should claim America.”

  We British.

  Was West, indeed, an English subject? I wondered. Certainly he spoke as one; had been reared and educated as one. But his father was living an exile of sorts—celebrated by the Crown; a principal mover in the foundation of the Royal Academy; an object of esteem among a people who were not his own, and with whom his country had twice been at war.

  “The late Benjamin Franklin was also a Philadelphian,” William Chute observed, “and a damned friend to the French.”

  “As was my father,” West returned coolly. “There was a time when his sympathy for the French experiment made him unwelcome in this country. From being Surveyor of the King’s Pictures at Windsor, he was banished to Paris. But once the Monster showed his true stripes—once Buonaparte crowned himself Emperor—like every friend of Liberty, my father could not but be disgusted. He renounced the tyrant and returned to London. Sensible men understood and forgave him.”

  “Paris,” breathed Mary. “You must take us to Paris, James, now that the Emperor is overthrown. I long to see France before I die.”

  All the Austens were so accustomed to Mary’s intimacy with death that we did not flutter an eyelash at this statement, but Thomas-Vere Chute positively choked on his wine in surprize.

  “My dear Mrs. James,” he sputtered, and then looked with sympathy at my brother. Whether his fellow-feeling was born of grief at Mary’s secret decline, or grief for James at being burdened with her, I could not say.

  Mary sighed tragically, and struck an attitude I mentally appellated: Beauty Expires.

  “And how do you regard this American War, West?” Mr. L’Anglois asked.

  “As a fight we ought not to have chosen,” he replied. “The object, I understand, was to secure our territories and Naval stations beyond the present American borders; but it would seem to arise in truth from more petty concerns. Quarrels over the impressment of American seamen. The desire to inhibit rival trade—”

  “But surely,” I said, “the American alliance with France—the intimacy between the two nations—must be regarded as pernicious?”

  “With Napoleon dethroned, who can say? France is an unknown quantity. Having helped Louis to his throne, we might find the French better friends in future.”

  “Damned good thing Buonaparte has been routed,” William Chute interjected. “With our best troops—Wellington’s crack Peninsular units—cavorting in Baltimore and the swamps of Louisiana, we should never be able to answer a French threat if one came. Told Wellington as much myself, when last we met in London. Feel damned exposed with our veterans being months across the Atlantic. Thank God for the return of a sensible Bourbon in Paris, I say!”

  “Hear, hear,” Mr. L’Anglois intoned, and glasses were raised.

  Once we had drunk the French King’s health, Eliza turned the conversation, and I was not afforded an opportunity to expose my deplorable opinions again; but as we ladies rose to leave the gentlemen to their port, the Lieutenant stayed me with a word.

  “I think I may assure you,” he said in a lowered tone, “that the conflict is over. I cannot impart specifics—that should be a breach of duty, and my news
must properly be saved for the Admiralty—but as I informed Mr. Chute, a treaty between ourselves and the Americans was signed two days ago in Ghent.”

  “Then the season is indeed one day of peace,” I said. And left him.

  NO MENTION OF CHARADES was made in the drawing-room this evening. Eliza attempted to rally her guests with the setting out of card tables. My mother dearly loves games of chance—although gambling at Commerce is more to her taste than a hand of whist—and fell in with her hostess’s plans immediately. Miss Gambier and Lieutenant Gage sat a little apart, engrossed in a tête-à-tête; Mary attempted to form an engaging picturesque, her head bent low over Caroline and her book. I assumed this was for Mr. Raphael West’s benefit—he had appeared in the drawing-room tonight with a leather bound notebook in his hands. But immune to the appeal of the maternal bond, he crossed the room to where Cassandra and I sat over our coffee cups.

  “Your interest in the American War persuaded me to unearth this book,” he said, as we made room for him on our settee. “I was fortunate enough to visit the States some years ago, on a private errand of my father’s, and made numerous sketches. I thought perhaps you both might wish to see a little of the place that has figured so largely in your brothers’ fortunes.”

  I am no artist; that talent belongs to my sister, who employs her pencil as I employ words: to capture the likeness of home and landscape. Cassandra is so modest in her own valuation as never to produce a sketchbook whilst an artist of Raphael West’s stature should be by; not for Cassandra, the vain posturing of a Mary Austen with her charcoal and paper. She had entirely escaped West’s notice, being naturally of a retiring and self-doubting nature. But her intelligent comments as we reviewed the sketches—regarding light, and vantage-point, and scale of the subject—revealed her inclination to him; and without pressing her upon the point, he voiced an interest in seeing Cassandra’s drawings one day. She coloured, doubted, and was silent.

  “My sister has received no formal training,” I said gently, “and must shrink accordingly from the censure of such a master as yourself.”

  “I am no master,” he said abruptly. “I shall end my life as a student, Miss Austen—for Art is an exacting god, and accepts nothing but genius. But tell me: What do you think of America?”

  “It seems strange and wild,” I observed, “more violent in Nature than the pastoral beauties of England.”

  “Untamed,” Cassandra amended. “It puts me in mind of Derbyshire, Jane—the monstrous formations of rock near Bakewell. Even the Pinny at Lyme—surely you recall?—has crevasses and rifts in the cliffs like these.”

  “You give us log cabins, but no cities.” I glanced at West’s profile as he studied his own work. “Surely there are some, however recent in their construction? Washington City was said to be burnt down by our forces.”

  “Washington was established, as its name suggests, quite recently,” he replied, “and was thus built largely of wood. But the older cities—Philadelphia, Boston, New York—have many fine buildings of stone and brick. These sketches, however, were made in the Blue Mountains north of New York, along the Hudson River. Native tribes were once numerous there. I am not surprized, Miss Austen, that you see savagery and violence in their lines.”

  West’s art was astonishing—his charcoal drawings surging and vivid with life, fantastical in their representations. Under his hand, a felled tree became a vanquished god, all twisting branches and gnarled trunk, as though the gargoyles of an ancient cathedral had bewitched the forest and taken it for their own. Grotesqueries animated his landscapes; Nature warred; no spot was left serene. The notebook was a glimpse into a turbulent soul entirely masked by the gentleman’s well-bred façade. He had claimed passion, rather than the cool Platonics of his father’s art; but I saw the Gothick and the Romantic struggling for a Classicist’s soul.

  Was the violence in the landscape—or in the man?

  I might have voiced the question aloud, but for the sudden recurrence of Christmas in our midst.

  Eliza had appeared in the doorway with a large, shallow bowl in her hands. Blue flames danced along its surface, casting eerie shadows on her neck and face. “Quickly!” she cried. “Snuff the candles, before the effect is run out!”

  We hastened to do as we were bid, each of us dousing the nearest light.

  Eliza swayed across the room like a Vestal, the flickering bowl in her hands. She set it on a table William Chute had swiftly cleared of its oil lamp.

  “Snapdragon!” she cried, and stepped back. “Children—the three of you must snatch your raisins first!”

  THE THIRD DAY

  8

  THE CHILDREN’S BALL

  Tuesday, 27th December 1814

  The Vyne

  I do not know exactly what woke me in the middle of the night—an unaccustomed noise, perhaps, for certainly the vast pile of The Vyne is rife with them. I sat up. A shaft of moonlight cut through the draperies nearest me, which were imperfectly drawn. The snow had ceased. I pulled on my dressing gown, for the fire had burnt low and the bedchamber was chilly. My window gave out on the lake and The Vyne’s north front, the rear of the house; an unbroken carpet of white glowed beneath me, fringed with black trunks. It was a bewitching sight.

  The moon was low in the sky, opaque and agate, brushed with cloud. I judged that the hour was near dawn. Thoroughly awake, I glanced over my shoulder at the sleeping Cassandra. If I lit a candle to write in my journal, the light might disturb her. Better to use the early hour to deliver young Caroline’s third gift.

  This was a neat carriage dress for day-wear, made of chestnut-coloured French twill, with a brown velveteen spencer and a dashing tartan silk turban for Jemima’s curls. A rabbit-fur muff and a gathered velveteen reticule completed the costume. I had even persuaded the cobbler in Alton to fashion a pair of diminutive brown leather boots. The perfect attire for a Fashionable lady’s airing, in Hyde Park or around her country estate.

  The prospect of a hunt being distant, until a general thaw should be achieved, James and Mary might wish to depart The Vyne so soon as this morning. Cassandra and I had therefore decided last night that a carriage dress would be perfect for Jemima’s needs. I gathered up the doll’s clothes and moved noiselessly to the door.

  There I halted, every nerve in my being aquiver.

  A low murmur of conversation—words indistinguishable, but tone unmistakable—filtered to my ears from the passage beyond.

  A woman was speaking, her voice angry and defiant; a man answered, calm but vaguely threatening. Blast these heavy oaken doors! I could make no sense of the words. Never mind that I had no right to do so—that at such an hour, and in such a place, this must be a private conversation. I did not hesitate to overlisten it. The scene was one more clew, if any were needed after the ugly end to our charades, that all was not well at The Vyne.

  I laid the doll’s clothes on the washstand and pressed my ear to the door.

  “Be damned to you,” the woman said with the sudden clarity of a bell.

  “Very well, madam. I will know how to act.”

  There was an instant’s silence in the passage, as tho’ all breath were suspended. Then the man—for he was still there—heaved a queer sort of sigh, part agony, part relief. I heard his steps turn and pace swiftly past my door.

  I gathered up Caroline’s gift and waited for the space of ten seconds. Then I turned the knob and peered down the hallway in the direction of the vanishing footsteps. I saw no one, but the distant glow of a candle flickering along the walls told me that the unknown gentleman was moving away from me.

  I glanced to the right—and saw Mary Gambier.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I thought I heard voices.”

  “So did I,” she said, and closed her door.

  NOT JAMES’S VOICE. NOR William Chute’s. I did not think it was Edward Gambier—nor could I find a reason why he should threaten his sister from the hall passage in the early hours of morning. That left four other gent
lemen: Thomas-Vere Chute, Benedict L’Anglois, Lieutenant John Gage—and Raphael West.

  I remembered the tortured tree limbs and dwarfed figures in his sketches, the undercurrent of menace in the unknown man’s voice.

  I would wait for Cassandra to wake, before delivering Caroline’s present.

  “YOU MUST PROMISE TO return to us once your duty to the Admiralty is done, Gage,” William Chute said.

  The Lieutenant stood on the south side of the Staircase Hall before the front door, his blue cloak caught at his neck and his hat once more upon his head. One of Chute’s grooms had saddled the messenger’s horse, rested and mettlesome after a night in the stables. The lad waited on the porch outside, ready to throw Gage into his stirrups.

  “That is, if you’re able to cut your way through these drifts!” Chute continued. “I wonder you bother to attempt it.”

  “Folly,” Eliza chided. “Pray listen to sense, Lieutenant Gage, and remain with us another day or two. Your news will keep—and far better to arrive in London with it safely, than to falter in the attempt!”

  The Naval messenger smiled awkwardly. “I fear I have already delayed too long, and will merit any penalty for tardiness the Admiralty chuses to impose.” His eyes drifted to the staircase, where Mary Gambier stood with her hands clasped and her countenance as expressionless as marble. Her aunt had not appeared that morning; it was her habit to take her breakfast on a tray in bed. “Your liberality in welcoming a stranger, Mrs. Chute, shall not be soon forgotten.”

  “But you must return to us! Surely they cannot detain you so long in London. We shall expect you in a few days’ time.”

  “I cannot promise,” he said with difficulty, “tho’ my heart wishes it. You are all kindness. But my time—indeed my life—is not my own. I must go where duty and the Admiralty bid.”

  He doffed his hat, bowed to us all, and turned towards his horse. Painful, to watch a publick leave-taking between two hearts that must yearn to bid each other adieu in private, and far more tenderly. I hoped the Lieutenant and Miss Gambier had snatched a moment to say their farewells.